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Florida Sunshine in the Healthcare Debate

Two of my colleagues at the other place I post, Buck
Naked Politics,
are based in Florida, the home of the dimpled chad. For a decade, we’ve
all been cringing when we hear they have an election down there. Will
they elect another member of the Bush family, or someone like Kathleen Harris,
unable to discern the difference between serving the Bushes and performing her
responsibility to voters? Perhaps they’d send us another a moral-majority
type like Mark Foley, leading one (creepy) life for himself and espousing
another very conservative set of rules for the rest of us? Who would
Floridians send to Washington next?

Well, thanks to Damozel and Deb, I’ve noticed that
they’ve now served up a refreshing Florida surprise down there in Congressman
Alan Grayson, a freshman Democrat from the Orlando area. Perhaps the
Sunshine State has spawned some real cultural changes over the last decade— and
we may all be better off for it. While most of the country is still
sending timid negotiators or know-nothing naysayers to the floor of the
Congress, Florida has delivered us a legislator who wants to focus attention on
some basic realities about the battle for progressive change.

When confronted with a Republican chorus of “start
over,” “no government in my healthcare,” and “let’s not rush into change,”
Grayson decided after eight months in Washington to fight fire with fire.
He stood up in the well of the House and called Republicans on the content of
their healthcare plans… or rather the total lack of any plan in their
obstructionism. He described the Republican plan in three parts:

1- Don’t Get Sick

2- If You DO Get Sick…

3- …Die Quickly

Many media pundits quickly criticized Grayson for
incivility and several Republicans took him literally, demanding hilariously to
know when he had heard any of them actually asking particular people to
die. But, in truth, Grayson exposed the incredible double-standard that’s
been at play in the healthcare debate, in which the Right simply calls the
President names— and then twists reform into descriptions of ‘death panels’ and
a looming Big Brother, while Democrats (with a few notable exceptions) turn
around and defensively parry these outrageous statements with gentle
rejoinders, charts, and graphs. The effect of this dynamic is to make
healthcare reform look unpopular and ultimately doomed, despite continued
grassroots support for a public option and for real change.

One thing I’ve learned living in New York: when the
people you’re fighting with stop fighting fair, you better take off the gloves
too, or you’re gonna be lying in the gutter soon, wishing you had.
Grayson has spent the last week responding to calls about his
attention-grabbing parody by citing just how dangerous it is to do nothing
about our broken healthcare system. It’s actually fatal to 4,400 people
every year. That’s right, people die in this country all the time because
they have no insurance. If we’re planning on waiting till every
Republican is happy with a compromise plan, many more Americans will die for
lack of health insurance—and that’s simply unacceptable, Grayson says.

Until now, the healthcare debate has featured
passion on the Right and mostly compromise, vacillation, and gentle persuasion
by reform proponents. Congressman Grayson has just pointed out that in
order to make change, it might be necessary to some people go away mad, so the
rest of us can move forward and make a better America. It’s way past time
for us be disengaged while the reactionaries and talk radio celebrities grab
headlines with pitchforks, placards, and shouldered shotguns. If we want
change, we better realize, as Grayson has, that it’s not gonna come easy, or
gently, but only with resolve and a willingness to fight ignorance with truth—
and backbone.

UPDATE— In the same vein as the post above, Paul Krugman writes today (Monday) in the NYTimes about thenew position of the Republican Party:attack anything that might look like success for the other side, no matter what ideological inconsistency might be necessary.Scorched Earth.The new black.